Theology proper is the thorough study of God. It has been designated proper to delineate it as a study of the Godhead rather than the larger study of God, the revealed works that he has done, is doing, and shall do, i.e. the whole study of Theism that we are systematically engaged in and thus designate systematic theology. In theology proper one is engaged in a study of everything one needs to know about God himself, and everything one therein needs to know, has been revealed in God's completed revelation to man, the Holy Bible. Realizing that God is infinite, and man is finite is to realize that knowing God will always be finite and limited, and thus limited here to what man “needs to know.”
Such a study first considers the sixty six books, written by forty men, over a period of 1,592 years, to be the inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired Word of God, and to be the sole source of all theology, particularly here theology proper. Thus, what man naturally knows about God is not discovered by examination of the philosopher's ontological or teleological argument, nor by man's anthropological or cosmological reasoning, but by examining what God's word says that man naturally knows about God. It declares that God himself has placed inside of man a natural knowledge of God and his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, that our Lord Jesus Christ is a light that ligheth every man that cometh into the world, and that “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:10). These three revelations mark all of the naturalistic theology one needs to systematically delve into.
Likewise what God knew, what God planned, and what God programmed before the foundation of the world is not discovered by examining a logical, philosophical creed declaring what he must have known, or detailing the decrees of God compiled by some genius theologian of the past, it is discovered by looking into the perfect law of liberty. Therein one sees a Sovereign God who has given some measure of sovereignty to man; therein one sees a God who repents of some of his own decrees thus responding to that delegated sovereignty in man, and therein one sees, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
In these two venues alone one can see the importance of using the Bible as a sole authority for our theology, and one can see the failures of previous theology works that did not. Know God. Study God. Study not on the basis of visions, or feelings, or logical reasoning, or ideas of men, or even ideas of genius theologians of bygone days, but on the basis of what he has revealed about himself in the sixty-six books called the Holy Bible. That study alone causes that he must increase, and I must decrease. This chapter of that study has only outlined some of the important things that one can know about God from that revelation, and it constitutes the opening of a door, that you may know God. Important in this doorway are the names of God, the existence of God, the nature of God, the attributes of God, and the Fatherhood of God, and each of these was found well documented in Dr. Cambron's “Bible Doctrines” book.
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
euteronomy 29:29
The Systematic Theology for the 21st Century Part 3 Theollogy Proper - The Study of God the Father
Series Complete Table of Contents
Two Pursue other series of Pastor Ed Rice TruthAboutTheChrist.com